In 1923, the twenty-seven-year-old Paul Hindemith published a composition for voice and piano, entitled Das Marienleben, based on Rainer Maria Rilke's poetic cycle of 1912. Twenty-five years later, the composer presented a thoroughly revised, partially rewritten version. The outcome of this revision has been highly controversial. Ever since its first publication, musicologists have argued for or against the value of such a decisive rewriting. They do so both by comparing the two compositions on purely musical grounds, and by attempting to assess whether the more strictly organized tonal layout and dynamic structuring of Marienleben II is more or less appropriate for the topic of a poetic cycle on the Life of Mary. This study is the first to analyze the messages conveyed in the two versions with an emphasis on their implicit aesthetic, philosophical, and spiritual significance. Acknowledging the compositions as examples of musical ekphrasis ("a representation in one artistic medium of a message originally composed in another medium"), the author argues in exhaustive detail that the young Hindemith of 1922-23 and the mature composer of 1941-48 can be seen as setting two somewhat different poetic cycles. This volume is of interest for musicologists and music lovers, scholars of German literature and lovers of Rilke's poetry, as well as for readers interested in the interartistic relationships of music and literature.

This book provides a stylistic and cognitive poetic account of ekphrastic poetry (poetry whose subject matter is predominantly artworks and images), examining the linguistic processes through which works of art can become literary objects. The author sheds light on the workings of ekphrasis at a textual level, while also considering the cognitive and psychological effects of reading ekphrastic poems, developing cognitive and stylistic analytical frameworks grounded on the four principles that govern ekphrasis: representation, narrativization, transposition, and collaboration. This book will be of interest to academics and practitioners in various fields, including literary critics, art critics, rhetoricians, poets, visual artists, and stylisticians.

Investigates how other types of music have influenced the scope of the song cycle, from operas and symphonies to popular song --

Comparative Criticism addresses itself to the questions of literary theory and criticism. This new volume looks at the Humanist Tradition in the Twentieth Century and articles will include: The Book in the Totalitarian Context; Lorenzo Valla and Changing Perceptions of Renaissance Humanism; Hitler's Berlin; Civilisation and barbarism: an anthropological approach; Walter Pater to Adrian Stokes: psychoanalysis and humanism; Art History and Humanist Tradition in the Stefan George Circle. The winning entries in the 1999-2000 BCLA/BCLT translation competition are also published.